Episode 2
'Plot Summary ' A man in Catholic priestly garb gets out of the Armenian’s car and enters a prison, making his way to Herr Koenig’s cell. He gets on his knees and prays for vengeance from God – Koenig, shaken, also gets on his knees, and repeats the prayer spoken by the priest. He gradually breaks down into sobs and curls up on the ground. Gereon visits the dark room to get the frame of the film he found last episode developed into a better picture. He tells the developer, Herr Graf, not to tell anyone about the picture. Gereon walks down a hallway, passing a silent and distraught Koenig, when Bruno calls him into his office. Gereon’s service weapon has been returned to him. Gereon interrogates Koenig once again, this time about the film frame, again asking about the blackmail film’s location. Koenig asks for some fresh air. Gereon stands up, turns around, and opens the window, leaving his service weapon holstered on the chair – Koenig lurches for it, killing himself. Having ignored Koenig’s pleas for him to close his eyes, Gereon witnesses his suicide and begins shaking severely – he stumbles out past a guard who saw him holding Koenig’s body, and tries to walk “calmly” to the bathroom before losing control of his nerves. Cut to Charlotte entering the men’s bathroom. She hears strange noises and peers under the neighboring stall, seeing Gereon lying on the floor suffering from severe convulsions. Charlotte goes to his aid, and Gereon tells her to take something out of his inner pocket as loses control of his bowels, like Krajewski in the last episode. She retrieves a case full of laudanum. After pouring one bottle into Gereon’s mouth, he asks for another – she fumbles with one bottle, which bounces behind the toilet and gets stuck in a crevice in the wall. After drinking the second bottle, Gereon’s convulsions stop. He tells Charlotte not to tell anyone about his episode. Gereon comments about how one of them is in the wrong restroom – Charlotte's responds by talking about the tiny number of women’s restrooms in the police headquarters compared to men’s restrooms. They finally introduce themselves to each other – Charlotte makes a sarcastic comment about Gereon’s unusual first name. At the Moka Efti, Kardakov picks up Countess Sorokina from the Moka Efti. He shows her consignment forms for the train car the Trotskyists attached in the last episode – AB 3221, destined for Istanbul. At the police headquarters, Gereon makes a call to his mysterious benefactor in Cologne, reporting that Koenig is dead and that he does not have the film. His call is interrupted by Bruno, and Gereon tells Bruno about what happened to Koenig. Bruno takes Gereon to the “political department”, headed by Councilor Benda. Benda berates Gereon furiously, then dismisses everyone but Gereon from the room – Bruno attempts to linger, but ultimately complies. Once they are alone, Benda’s tone softens considerably. Benda reveals he has been brought into the loop on Gereon’s mission, and demands Gereon explain everything to him. Gereon exposits that his benefactor is the Lord Mayor of Cologne – Dr. Konrad Adenauer – and his mission is to retrieve material being used by someone higher up than Koenig to blackmail him. Benda agrees to support Gereon and sweep the messy details of Koenig’s suicide under the rug, and also instructs Bruno to find Gereon new accommodations. Bruno calls a woman named Landlord Elizabeth Behnke, asking if there is a vacant room. She says that one has just been vacated, and goes to prepare it – it’s Kardakov’s room, and she packs away all his things. Bruno has the unfortunate Jaenicke drive Gereon to his new accommodations. Gereon has Jaenicke divert to Hermannplatz station first, where he meets Krajewski. Gereon asks who pressured Koenig into committing suicide. Krajewski reveals Koenig was a middleman for someone apparently unknown, and also that he knows one of the women in the blackmail film – a prostitute known as “Mutti aus Wedding”. A mustachio’d man in a leather jacket and fedora gets out of a car and enters the Soviet embassy. He reveals to the ambassador that Kardakov is the leader of a cell of Trotskyists in Berlin. The ambassador reports to his boss, over footage of Kardakov comforting an ill member of his cell at the printing shop. The ambassador mentions some sinister “arrangements” he has made. Gereon meets Frau Behnke and settles into his new accommodations. Another tenant barges into the building, heading for his room while looking stressed. His name is Samuel Katelbach, an Austrian expat and journalist, who Behnke accosts for being behind on his rent. Katelbach attempts to ward her off with free tickets to a jazz opera, but Behnke is unimpressed. He promises to pay her when his latest commentary critical of Austrian fascists is published. The Ritter women prepare dinner, and it becomes increasingly evident that the young men are useless layabouts. Charlotte reveals that she was able to afford some sausage. When questioning Toni about her day, Charlotte notices injuries to her hands, and deduces that she was at the spinning mill instead of school today, berating her for neglecting her education. Charlotte’s plight is further illustrated by showing her chronically ill grandmother being bed-ridden and her grandfather stealing a slice of raw sausage and messily eating it. After nightfall, Charlotte goes to the Moka Efti nightclub, passing communists chanting provocative slogans on the opposite street corner. She grabs a glass of alcohol and goes to the bar to have it watered down. A male patron approaches her and asks her to dance. Gereon goes to a pharmacist for a new batch of medicine. He bribes the pharmacist with pornographic evidence photographs (Dirty Cop). Even the pharmacist believes that the medicine is for purely recreational use. After Gereon leaves, the pharmacist browses his new photographs, and is disturbed to find one of severed arms mixed in (Call Back). Back at the Moka Efti, Jaenicke admires the women with his friend, Rudi. Jaenicke tells Rudi that he is drawn to Charlotte, who is dancing with the man from earlier. The exceedingly confident Rudi proceeds to pawn his cigarette off on Jaenicke and approaches Charlotte himself, making a backhanded “introduction” for Jaenicke. Charlotte goes to dance with Rudi as a singer known as Nikoros is introduced. Nikoros is the man who visited the Soviet embassy earlier. A Musical Number ensues. An entranced crowd dances as if in a shell-shocked daze. During the number, Jaenicke takes an opportunity to butt in next to Charlotte, and Rudi and Jaenicke engage in peacocking via dance in an attempt to win over Charlotte. In the end, neither gets Charlotte. She disappears after the dance number. At the Trotskyist printing shop, Kardakov inspects the forged consignment document, signing it before going outside to use the outhouse. A montage sequence of parallel events begins (Montage Out). Nikoros sits down in his dressing room. Charlotte smokes at the bar. A well-dressed patron gives a blue sugar packet to a waiter, nodding toward Charlotte. Kardakov watches as a mysterious car rolls into the printing shop courtyard. The waiter gives the sugar packet to Charlotte – Charlotte looks at the patron in question, and nods to the waiter in assent before leading the patron downstairs to the basement. The basement of the Moka Efti is a brothel – Charlotte’s “night job” is work as a prostitute. In the dressing room, “Nikoros” takes off “his” wig to reveal that it is the cross-dressing Countess Sorokina, briefly cutting to the Soviet ambassador sitting at the embassy (Exposition Cut). Charlotte and the patron don bondage gear. The Soviet hitmen massacre the Trotskyists in the printing shop, cut over patrons of the Moka Efti dancing wildly to a jazz number and Charlotte chaining an eager John by the neck. In the outhouse, Kardakov holds in an emotional breakdown as he hears and sees his comrades executed. The music and dancers at the Moka Efti suddenly freeze, as Sorokina smokes in the dressing room, knowing what is happening at the printing shop right now. She is visited by one of the patrons who had watched her from the Moka Efti’s gallery – an industrialist named Alfred Nyssen (No Historical Figures Were Harmed) with a prominent birthmark on his face. He gives her flowers, and she leads him on. The Soviet hitmen execute any surviving Trotskyists and bring a copy of the consignment forgery to the ambassador, wondering where Kardakov is. As they leave, one of them notices the outhouse, riddling it with bullets. Opening it, he finds it empty. As they leave, the camera pans down to Kardakov swimming in the sewage below.